Talks between the AFL and News Ltd consortium bosses dragged on yesterday but are expected to conclude today with Channel9 indicating it would make an announcement to appease disgruntled fans in Queensland, NSW and Canberra.

The news comes amid disappointment in Sydney that Saturday night's grand final re-match between Essendon and Brisbane - the biggest home-and-away game of the year - will not be shown live or telecast at a reasonable hour in the city.

The match, the domain of Channel10, will be shown live in Melbourne and on slight delay in Brisbane, but not until 11.25pm on Saturday in Sydney.");document.write("

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The station is instead broadcasting The Crocodile Hunter: Wildest Home Videos at 7.30pm followed by the 1973 James Bond film Live And Let Die at 8.30pm and a news bulletin at 10.55pm.

Alston warned that if the AFL and its broadcasters failed to fix the situation, the Government would step in.

"If [they] don't, then we will have to look seriously at what we do with the anti-siphoning list, because I don't think it's being used in the way that it was intended to if people are simply hoarding events to protect their own commercial interest," he told John Laws on 2UE radio.

Alston warned the broadcasters had "breached the spirit" of anti-siphoning rules that ensure popular sporting events remain on free-to-air TV and do not migrate to pay TV. He attacked the decision to delay broadcasts by several hours in Canberra and parts of NSW and Queensland on Friday nights and said the AFL should have cut a deal with Ten or the pay-TV providers to fill the programming gaps.

Possible changes include amending broadcasting legislation to allow pay-TV operators to screen sports matches ahead of their free-to-air rivals if they failed to schedule them within a reasonable time.

In other developments, the ABC confirmed yesterday it rejected the Nine Network's offer for limited broadcast rights in parts of rural NSW because of technical and programming difficulties.

The AFL also faces a potential legal challenge by Seven if it attempts to sweeten the broadcast deal to ensure adequate regional coverage. Seven paid $20million for the first and last rights agreement in 1997 which dictates that the AFL provides details of competing bids.

If the AFL decides to subsidise regional operators such as Southern Cross, which owns Channel10's regional affiliates, this would breach the first and last deal, in place until 2011, by altering the original broadcast rights contract.

AFL chief executive Wayne Jackson yesterday remained confident a compromise could be reached.

Although Channel7 rarely broadcasted live games on Saturday night in Sydney, the lack of live telecasts here has enraged fans this season.

"It's frustrating from both an Essendon point of view and, I would imagine, an AFL point of view," Bombers chief executive officer Peter Jackson said yesterday. "From Essendon's point of view, it's a matter of public record that we've gone up there two years ago to affiliate with a local club in North Shore Football Club and part of that is to try to build our own brand up there and it's very hard to do that when you've probably got the biggest home-and-away game of the year not being telecast into that city."

A Channel10 spokesman said the game was being shown in four out of five capital cities, and the station would monitor the ratings of its Sydney Swans prime-time broadcasts this year before looking to expand its coverage into Sydney beyond Swans games.

"We are heavily committed to AFL football in Sydney and Brisbane, with 10 Swans games in prime-time on Saturday nights, which hasn't been done since 1997, and 11 [games] in Brisbane," he said.

"We're doing things that Seven has never ever done by a long way in Sydney."

Jackson said there had been an "enormous backlash" from supporters about the scheduling.

"It has, in one sense, surprised us about the depth of feeling up there and I think that's a good thing that there is such a depth of feeling," he said.